School Closure Packet Subject: 6th Grade Science Name: ______College: ______Directions Complete this packet of daily instruction for each subject. These take-home lessons will take the place of your regular in-school lessons. Packet completion will count towards grades in the place of normal in-school classwork.
Expectations for completion: • Complete all assigned work each day. • Complete professionally (keep the page neat, use a pencil).
Teacher information: [email protected] or Call 718-473-7902
Packet Due: 3/27 Parent Signature: ______I sign that my child fully completed all assigned work within this packet.
A Message from Ms.High
Dear Parents and Students,
This is your science packet to complete for the next two weeks. It is filled with a combination of readings and ways for students to respond. While you are home this week, you will become ecologists, on a mission to save endangered or threatened species from extinction. Through research and investigations, you will build your awareness and knowledge of each chosen species and the threats it faces. You will study plant and animal reproduction, including courtship behaviors, sexual and asexual methods of reproduction, and the inheritance and variation of traits. You will discover how some animal species look after their offspring to help them survive and explore how conservationists around the world try to ensure the survival of entire species. Eventually, you will come up with a conservation plan of your own.
Time to dive in!
Daily Directions Date: 3/17/2020
Lesson #: 2
Materials: • Student Packet: “Survival Prior Knowledge” • Twig Book
Driving Question: How do animal behaviors and plant structures affect their survival and reproduction?
Directions:
1. Read the passage “Survival Prior Knowledge” 2. in your Student Packet. 3. Complete questions 1- 3 on page 5 in your Twig Book.
Date: 3/18/2020
Lesson # : 2 Part 2
Materials: • Twig Book • Passages in student packet: o “What is an Ecologist?” o “What is an Endangered Species?” o Endangered Species Passages § “The Sumatran Tiger” § “Black Rhinos” § “Bornean Orangutan”
Directions: 1. Turn to page 6 in your Twig Book. 2. Read and annotate “What is an Ecologist” in your Student Packet. 3. Read and annotate “What is an endangered species?” in your Student Packet. 4. Choose an endangered species to write a report about and complete page 6 in your Twig Book. 5. Turn to page 7 in your Twig Book and create 5 questions that would help direct an ecologist’s research when studying endangered species.
Date: 3/19/2020
Lesson#: 3
Materials: • Twig Book • Computer or phone • Links to video
Directions:
1. Turn to page 9 in your Twig Book. 2. Watch the following videos provided by the links below.
a. https://app.twigscience.com/video/courtship-rituals- marvelous-spatuletail/VVNFTlRXRTAwMzg0 b. https://app.twigscience.com/video/courtship-rituals- peacock-spider/VVNFTlRXRTAwMzg1 c. https://app.twigscience.com/video/courtship-rituals-puffer- fish/VVNFTlRXRTAwNDM0 d. https://app.twigscience.com/video/courtship-rituals-polar- bears/VVNFTlRXRTAwMjU4
3. As you are watching the video, take notes about the courtship behaviors and mating rituals of each animal on page 9. Things to consider as you write: a. How do animals attract mates? b. How do animals help their offspring survive? c. How do plants attract pollinators? d. How do plants spread their seeds and help them grow?
Date: 3/20/2020
Lesson #: 3 Part 2
Materials: Twig Book
Directions:
1. Using the notes you took yesterday, complete a C-E-R Chart on page 10 in your Twig Book that proves or disproves the claim “Animals attract mates by using courtship behaviors.”
Date: 3/23/2020
Lesson #: 4 Part 1
Materials: Twig Book Directions: 1. Turn to page 13 in your Twig Book. 2. Read the “Widowbird study” on page 13 in your Twig Book. 3. Complete the analysis on page 14 in your Twig Book.
Date: 3/24/2020
Lesson #: 4 part 2
Materials: Twig Book Directions: 1. Read the analysis of both scientists on page 14 in your Twig Book. 2. On page 15 in your Twig Book, complete “Construct explanations” and the “Challenge.” 3. Ask yourself, why is the Widowbird study useful? Then complete page 16 in your Twig Book.
Date: 3/25/2020
Lesson #: 6 Materials: o Twig Book o Link for video Directions: 1. Watch the “Poison Arrow Frog” video a. https://app.twigscience.com/video/poison-arrow- frog/VVNFTlRXRTAwMzYw 2. Read the “Poison Arrow Frog” report on page 23 3. In complete sentences, complete page 26 in your Twig Book.
Date: 3/26/2020
Lesson #: 7 Materials: o Twig Book o Link For video Directions: 1. Watch the “Giant Otter” video. a. https://app.twigscience.com/video/giant- otter/VVNFTlRXRTAwMzYx 2. Read pages 27-32 in your Twig Book. 3. After reading the article, create a claim about how animals help their offspring to survive.
Date 3/27/2020
Lesson #: 9 Materials: Twig Book Directions: 1. Read Pages 37-40 2. Complete page 41 in your Twig Book.
What’s in this Packet?
• Survival Prior Knowledge • “What is an Ecologist? ” • “What is an Endangered Species?” • Endangered Species Article s
What is an Ecologist?
Ecology is the study of the relationships between living things and their surroundings, or environment. Scientists who work in ecology are called ecologists. Ecologists examine how living things depend on one another for survival. They also study how living things use such natural resources as air, soil, and water to stay alive. Some ecologists work in laboratories. Laboratory experiments allow ecologists to study things under controlled conditions. For instance, they can experiment to see how plants react to different amounts of light or water. Such studies are harder in a natural setting because weather and other natural conditions cannot be controlled. However, many ecologists do work in natural, outdoor settings. They look at all the different factors that affect ecosystems, or communities of living things. Studies in the outdoors are useful because they show what is actually happening in the environment.
Ecologists study the interactions between living things and their environment. These interactions occur at different levels. Individuals, populations, communities, and ecosystems experience different kinds of interactions with their environment. A population is made up of all members of the same species living within a given area. A single member of a population is called an individual. The area where a population lives can vary in size. The pine trees in a forest are a population as are the great white sharks in an ocean. Bacteria that live in a person’s large intestine are another example of a population. A population is described by its size and by how its individuals are spread out over a given area. The many different populations that interact with one another in an area are called a community. For example, a forest community contains trees, plants, mammals, insects, earthworms, and many tiny living things, such as fungi and bacteria, in the soil. The members of a forest community rely on one another for survival. An ecosystem is made up of all of the communities and nonliving materials in an area. Ecosystems on land can be found in forests, grasslands, tundra, and deserts. Saltwater and freshwater ecosystems exist in oceans, lakes, rivers, and wetlands. Ecology is important because it shows how changes in the environment affect the survival of living things. For example, when pollution kills certain living things, the animals that feed on them also may die. The work of ecologists has convinced many people to conserve, or protect, the environment and all the ecosystems that it supports.
What is an Endangered Species?
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, an Endangered species, [is] any species that is at risk of extinction because of a sudden rapid decrease in its population or a loss of its critical habitat. Previously, any species of plant or animal that was threatened with extinction could be called an endangered species.
As a future ecologist, read to discover more about these endangered species. At the end of these readings, you will create your own conservationist plan that will help preserve the animals here on planet Earth.
The Sumatran Tiger
The Sumatran tiger is found only on the Indonesian island of Sumatra off the Malaysian Peninsula. Sadly, fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers are estimated to remain in the wild. This subspecies is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species due to poaching, habitat loss and human-wildlife conflict. Kerinci Seblat National Park and the Ulu Masen and Leuser ecosystems of Aceh on the Indonesian island of Sumatra are global priority areas for tiger conservation. One of the main threats to Sumatran tigers is poaching. Hunters trap or shoot them for their skin, bones and canines, which are in high demand as status symbols, primarily overseas, and for use in East Asian traditional medicine. Habitat loss due to expansion of oil palm, coffee and acacia plantations, and smallholder encroachment also threaten these big cats.
Fauna & Flora International (FFI) is conserving tigers and other threatened wildlife such as clouded leopards and Asian elephants in three Sumatran landscapes: Aceh, Riau and Kerinci Seblat National Park. In combination, these forests contain more than 60% of all wild Sumatran tigers. Success here is therefore critical for the tiger’s long-term survival.
Kerinci Seblat National Park was one of the few protected areas in Asia where, park-wide, tiger encounter records stabilized during 2007 – 2011 and began to increase. This was due to the improved protection afforded by FFI and partners through our Tiger Protection & Conservation Units. Sadly, in 2013 – 2015 a major spike in poaching threat was recorded, driven by organized illegal wildlife trade syndicates. This threat has now dramatically reduced following targeted, intelligence-led law enforcement, paving the way for recovery.
Poaching - https://www.thoughtco.com/overview-of-poaching-127892
Black Rhinos
Once roamed many places throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa and were known to early Europeans who depicted them in cave paintings. At the beginning of the 20th century, 500,000 rhinos roamed Africa and Asia. By 1970, rhino numbers dropped to 70,000, and today, as few as 29,000 rhinos remain in the wild. Very few rhinos survive outside national parks and reserves due to persistent poaching and habitat loss over many decades. Three species of rhino—black, Javan, and Sumatran—are critically endangered.
Today, a small population of Javan rhinos is found in only one national park on the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Java. A mainland subspecies of the Javan rhino was declared extinct in Vietnam in 2011. Successful conservation efforts have led to an increase in the number of greater one-horned (or Indian) rhinos, from around 200 at the turn of the 20th century to more than 3,700 today. The greater one-horned rhino is one of Asia’s biggest success stories, with their status improving from endangered to vulnerable following significant population increases. However, the species still remains under threat from poaching for its horn and from habitat loss and degradation.
In Africa, southern white rhinos, once thought to be extinct, now thrive in protected sanctuaries and are classified as near threatened. But the western black rhino and northern white rhinos have recently become extinct in the wild. The only two remaining northern white rhino are kept under 24-hour guard in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Black rhinos have doubled in number over the past two decades from their low point of fewer than 2,500 individuals, but total numbers are still a fraction of the estimated 100,000 that existed in the early part of the 20th century.
Bornean Orangutan
The Bornean orangutan differs in appearance from the Sumatran orangutan, with a broader face and shorter beard and also slightly darker in color. Three subspecies are recognized, each localized to different parts of the island: Northwest Bornean orangutans are the most threatened subspecies. Its habitat has been seriously affected by logging and hunting, and a mere 1,500 individuals or so remain. Many habitat patches in the area are small and fragmented. Northeast Bornean orangutans are the smallest in size and found in Sabah and eastern Kalimantan as far as the Mahakam River. Central Bornean orangutans are the subspecies with the most animals, with at least 35,000 individuals. The Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) is now critically endangered, with populations in sharp decline due to habitat destruction and illegal hunting. Bornean orangutan populations have declined by more than 50% over the past 60 years, and the species' habitat has been reduced by at least 55% over the past 20 years. “This is the first time in many decades that we have a clear understanding of Bornean orangutan population trends,” Erik Meijaard, a member of the IUCN SSC Primates Specialist Group, said in a prepared release. “As orangutans are hunted and pushed out of their habitats, losses to this slow-breeding species are enormous and will be extremely difficult to reverse.” New projections anticipate their numbers will fall another 22 percent by the year 2025 to an estimated 47,000 apes.